After exercising, Stuart would slip on his handsome wool wrapper, tie the cord tightly around his waist, and start for the bathroom, creeping silently through the long dark hall past his mother's and father's room, past the hall closet where the carpet sweeper was kept, past George's room and along by the head of the stairs till he got to the bathroom.
早操之后，斯图亚特便套上他那漂亮的套头式羊毛便袍，把一根小绳子系到腰里，开始往浴室方向下落。他无声地爬过父母那又长又暗的卧室外面，又经过放扫毯器的那个小房间，还有乔治的卧室，然后才能进到浴室里。
Stuart was an early riser: he was almost always the first person up in the morning. He liked the feeling of being the first one stirring; he enjoyed the quiet rooms with the books standing still on the shelves, the pale light coming in through the windows, and the fresh smell of day. In wintertime it would be quite dark when he climbed from his bed made out of the cigarette box, and he sometimes shivered with cold as he stood in his nightgown doing his exercises. (Stuart touched his toes ten times every morning to keep himself in good condition. He had seen his brother George do it, and George had explained that it kept the stomach muscles firm and was a fine abdominal thing to do.)
斯图亚特是个爱早起的人：每天早晨他总是第一个起床。他喜欢第一个在屋里走动，他也喜欢书本静静地插在书架上的安静的房间，到窗子里透进的黯淡的光，还有新鲜的空气。在冬天，当他从那烟盒做的床上爬起来时，天还很黑，他穿着睡衣站在那里做早操时，有时会冷得发抖。（斯图亚特每早都要弯腰摸十次脚指头，以使他的身体状况保持良好。他看到哥哥乔治就是这么做的，乔治解释说那会令腹肌变得结实，因此是一个很好的锻炼腹部的方法。）
To get to the washbasin, Stuart had to climb a tiny rope ladder which his father had fixed for him. George had promised to build Stuart a small special washbasin only one inch high and with a little rubber tube through which water would flow; but George was always saying that he was going to build something and then forgetting about it. Stuart just went ahead and climbed the rope ladder to the family washbasin every morning to wash his face and hands and brush his teeth. Mrs. Little had provided him with a doll's size toothbrush, a doll's size cake of soap, a doll's size washcloth, and a doll's comb -- which he used for combing his whiskers. He carried these things in his bathrobe pocket, and when he reached the top of the ladder he took them out, laid them neatly in a row, and set about the task of turning the water on. For such a small fellow, turning the water on was quite a problem. He had discussed it with his father one day after making several unsuccessful attempts.
为了进到洗脸池里，斯图亚特得爬上他的父亲为他绑在那上面的一个小绳梯。乔治已经答应过，给斯图亚特造一个只有一英寸高的特别小的洗脸盆，里面还将装有一根用来放水的小橡皮管；乔治虽然常这样说，可过后却总是忘记他的许诺。因此斯图亚特在每天早上洗脸洗手和刷牙的时候，都只好这么顺着绳梯往家中的洗脸池爬。利特尔太太给他准备了一个玩具般大的牙刷、肥皂、毛巾，还有一把玩具梳子——这可以让他用来梳胡子。他把这些东西都放到了他的浴衣口袋里，等他爬到梯子的顶端，便把它们掏出来整齐地排成一行，然后才去做放水的工作。对这样一个小家伙来说，放水也成了一个难题。一天，他在几次不成功的尝试后，和他的父亲商讨起这件事来。
Of course, the bathroom would be dark, too, but Stuart's father had thoughtfully tied a long string to the pull-chain of the light. The string reached clear to the floor. By grasping it as high up as he could and throwing his whole weight on it, Stuart was able to turn on the light. Swinging on the string this way, with his long bathrobe trailing around his ankles, he looked like a little old friar pulling the bellrope in an abbey.
当然，浴室里也很黑，但是斯图亚特的父亲已经往灯绳上接了一段长绳子。这段绳子一直拖到了地面上。只要尽可能地拉住它，再让全身的重量往下压，斯图亚特就能把灯打开，他穿着飘飘过膝的长浴衣在灯绳上摇摆的时候，看起来就像一个在大修道院里拉着钟绳的可爱的老修道士。
"I can get up onto the faucet all right," he explained, "but I can't seem to turn it on, because I have nothing to brace my feet against."
“我完全能来到水龙头那里，”他解释，“但有时我却好像拧不开它，因为我不能在上面站稳我的脚。”
Stuart, after examining this mess, turned to his father again. "Maybe I could pound the faucet with something and turn it on that way," he said.
斯图亚特察看了这些工具后，又来找他的父亲。“大概我可以用什么东西来把水龙头打开，”他说。
"Yes, I know," his father replied, "that's the whole trouble."
“是的，我知道，”他的父亲回答，“所有的麻烦就在这里。”
George, who always listened to conversations whenever he could, said that in his opinion they ought to construct a brace for Stuart; and with that he got out some boards, a saw, a hammer, a screw driver, a brad-awl, and some nails, and started to make a terrific fuss in the bathroom, building what he said was going to be a brace for Stuart. But he soon became interested in something else and disappeared, leaving the tools lying around all over the bathroom floor.
只要可能，总是在听这些谈话的乔治，建议说他们应该为斯图亚特造一个踏板；于是他便去找了几块小木板，一把锯子，一把锤子，一把螺丝刀，一把小锥子，几根钉子，准备在浴室里干一个漂亮活儿，造一个他所说的要给斯图亚特造的踏板。可是不久他就改了兴趣，跑到别的地方去玩了，任那些工具在浴室里四处乱丢着。
So Stuart's father provided him with a very small, light hammer made of wood; and Stuart found that by swinging it three times around his head and letting it come down with a crash against the handle of the faucet, he could start a thin stream of water flowing -- enough to brush his teeth in, anyway, and moisten his washcloth. So every morning, after climbing to the basin, he would seize his hammer and pound the faucet, and the other members of the household, dozing in their beds, would hear the bright sharp plink plink plink of Stuart's hammer, like a faraway blacksmith, telling them that day had come and that Stuart was trying to brush his teeth.
于是斯图亚特的父亲就给他找来一把很小的木锤子；斯图亚特发现，只要把它从头上挥动三次，击向水龙头开关，就能让细细的水流出来——这些水就足够让他刷牙，浸湿他的毛巾了。所以在每天早晨爬上洗脸池后，他就抓起他的锤子去击打水龙头，而这时还没完全睡醒的家里人就会从床上听到斯图亚特的锤子发出“当当当”的清脆敲击声，就像是远处有铁匠在打铁一样，这使他们知道白天已经来了，斯图亚特正在刷牙呢。